


a glittering house of cards

by dirtbagtrashcat



Category: Persona 3, Persona Series
Genre: Amnesia, Character Study, Delusion, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Memory Loss, P3P spoilers, Repression, Thanatos - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:21:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27235657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtbagtrashcat/pseuds/dirtbagtrashcat
Summary: There are gaps in Ryoji’s memory, moments of jarring recognition that he can’t quite make sense of. There’s a dark spot in Ryoji’s mind, but here and now, the sun is warm on his skin and it paints the sea’s surface in silver and blush. The shadow on his heart grows longer every day, but Hamuko is bright in every place that he is dark, so what does it matter that sometimes he forgets his own name?Ryoji Mochizuki is afraid to be alone, and he is terrified of tomorrow, and he has never been so happy.
Relationships: Arisato Minako & Mochizuki Ryoji, Arisato Minako/Mochizuki Ryoji, Female Persona 3 Protagonist & Mochizuki Ryoji, Mochizuki Ryoji & Persona 3 Protagonist
Comments: 18
Kudos: 52
Collections: Quality Persona Fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (P3P spoilers obviously)
> 
> I’ve been replaying p3p and i can’t stop thinking about the period _after_ Death manifests a body, but _before_ he realizes who he is, and it’s like… where is this boy sleeping? when he’s not at school, where does he go? is he ok????
> 
> seriously, the mental backflips he'd have to pull in order to avoid thinking too hard about anything that would shatter the precarious illusion he’s built around himself sound exhausting, and the fact that his sole coping mechanism is just to be flippant and insincere (when answering q’s about himself) coupled with being intensely earnest (when addressing Ham) is just so *chef’s kiss* choice. 
> 
> ...anyway here's some introspective pharos fanfic that no one asked for lmao

The boy who is not a boy is fairly sure that he doesn’t _have_ to sleep, but he likes to. Sleeping reminds him of something from -- some time before, possibly even before the boy looked like a boy at all. But what does that mean? How could he remember something from before there was a _he_ to remember?

He doesn’t have the answer. There’s a shadow in his mind, a hungry hole that grows and grows and no matter how many new memories he makes, they’re not enough to fill it. His past is full of holes, or maybe his past _is_ a hole: more void than substance.

Every so often, something _does_ float to the surface: a flash of familiarity; a jolt of context. It happens when he wanders into an old record store and his gaze stumbles over a pair of red headphones, and when he orders a small fries at Wuck and receives a limp packet of wet potatoes and snickers and eats them all anyway. The feeling is sort of like recall, except that when he tries to focus on it -- to remember with any kind of specificity -- he finds himself suddenly, _intensely_ reluctant to look any closer. It’s like treading water over open ocean and feeling something large and smooth brush the sole of your foot. Will you plunge your head under and swim after it? Or will you climb ashore and turn your face away? The boy who is not a boy is curious, but not enough to die for it.

It’s like that with Junpei. From the moment he shakes his hand, the boy is sure that he _knows_ Junpei -- that he’s known him for a year, at least. The boy knows the fits of melancholy that seize Junpei sometimes, when day yields to night; he knows when to redirect them with a quip and an elbow to the ribs, and when to address them head-on. The boy knows how to quell the flashes of ego that sometimes flare hot without warning, and he knows exactly how long it will take Junpei to apologize for the things he said while the flame still burned. But _why_ does the boy know Junpei? Junpei doesn’t know _him_.

“Where’d you say you were from again?” one of the girls asks him on his first day of school, and he just -- freezes. Did he say where he was from? If he did, can someone remind him? The girl is still looking at him, waiting.

“I’m from your dreams,” he tells her, batting his lashes. “I’m the prince you gave up on ever meeting. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Oh my _god_!” she squeals, shoving him. “How can you say stuff like that with a straight face?”

How _can_ he say stuff like that with a straight face? He doesn’t know. The other boys at school get embarrassed when a girl so much as _looks_ at them. But the boy who is not a boy feels at ease around girls, even more so than with guys. There’s something comforting about the way they feel, and look, and smell. Was he a girl in a past life? He doesn’t remember.

It’s faintly unnerving, but it doesn’t bother the boy, who is having more fun than he’s ever had in his life. School is full of delights: a whole vendor just for different kinds of bread, and fields of beautiful people running and grunting and sweating, and girls who will pet him and dote on him for nothing more than a few passing compliments. The girls all seem to like compliments, so the boy loosens his tongue and lets admiring words pour forth. _You’re lovelier than a shower of sakura petals. Your hands look cold, can I hold them for you? Did you fall from heaven? Cause they’d look better on my floor._ Junpei rolls his eyes, but the boy isn’t doing any harm, and people like it. He likes making people happy.

###

“Why don’t we go to your place this time?” Junpei suggests on his second day of school, and the boy’s brain stutters.

“My… place?” he echoes, stalling for time. Does he have a place? Is he supposed to?

The boy who is not a boy closes his eyes and wracks his brain for something useful. Yes… He has a place, he thinks, or he had one once: a little room with a desk and a checked pink bedspread and a mirror that showed him someone else's face.

“...Yeah?” Junpei says. “You know, like… Where you live? Where you go after school?”

“After school we went to Wuck,” the boy provides helpfully. “And then the arcade.”

“Riiight,” Junpei says, half-patient, half-disbelieving. “But like. After that?”

Where did the boy go after that? Sometimes it feels like he materializes from nothing on the train every morning, bag in hand, scarf wrapped snugly around his neck. Where does he go when he’s not at school or the strip mall or the arcade? When no one’s looking at him, does he even exist?

“...Uh, ok, let’s try, uh -- where your parents live?” Junpei attempts, faintly exasperated. At this, the boy’s face closes. Something solid rises from the murk of his mind: the leaden cold of loss; the lingering weight of grief. Whose grief is this? The boy’s mouth twists.

“I,” the boy says, and his voice cracks. “I don’t--” he tries again, but Junpei moves faster.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he cuts in, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “That was, uh -- I of all people shouldn’t make assumptions. You don’t have to talk about it,” he adds, kindly. “Let’s just go to mine.”

###

By the start of his third day, the boy is growing uneasy. He’d assumed that the dark place in his mind was a hole -- empty space vacated by memories of a past that he’d somehow forgotten. But when he looks closer, he can make out lines in the darkness: the suggestion of texture, and of movement, as though the dark place were _substance_ , not absence. But that would mean that the problem isn’t with his memory, it’s with him. It’s not that the boy _can’t_ remember, it’s that he won’t.

If the dark spaces in his mind aren’t holes, why are they so dark? What is it that he won’t let himself remember? Something tells him that it may be important.

The longer he ignores the darkness, the larger it grows. It is beginning to hurt. He carries the ache with him always. He can manage it still, for now, but how much longer can he hold its weight? How much longer until his whole mind is that dark place, and there is nowhere else to look?

“Ryoji!” a friendly voice calls, and the boy who is not a boy -- _Ryoji_ is his name, he keeps forgetting -- jolts back to the present. “You haven’t met Hamuko yet, right? She was out sick for a couple days.”

“Is she cute?” Ryoji asks, grinning. Junpei claps him on the shoulder, gives him a roguish wink.

“Like you wouldn’t believe. Sit tight, I’ll introduce you!”

Ryoji sits obediently as Junpei hollers across the room at a girl who wasn’t there the day before, a girl with frizzy brown hair so coppery-bright it’s nearly orange.

“Hamuko! Say hey the new new kid!”

“Hey, new new kid!” she calls back.

When she looks over, Ryoji can see that Hamuko’s hair is pinned in place with four hair clips, two sets of two, criss-crossed like the roman numeral for ten. For no apparent reason, his breath hitches. He can feel his heart hammering at his ribs like it’s trying to make a break for it. XX, X marks the spot, like a sign from god saying _look here, it’s the answer, this is why you’re here, it’s her, it’s for her, you’re for her_. He feels like he’s seen her every night in his dreams for the past sixteen years. He feels like he could guess her blood type on the first try. He’s pretty sure he knows what shampoo she uses.

“Has anyone introduced you yet?” Junpei asks as she saunters up. And then, not waiting for an answer: “Ryoji, this is Hamuko Arisato.”

“Hello,” he says, warm and soft, like he’s sharing a secret. She quirks an eyebrow, gives him an appraising but not unfriendly once-over.

"She transferred here earlier this year," Junpei adds helpfully.

"Oh," he says, studying her curiously. “I see.”

So she’s like him -- an outsider too, or at least she was not long ago. Is that why he feels this curious sense of kinship? _Hamuko Arisato_ … Strange. He feels like he’s seen that written down somewhere.

"I'm Ryoji Mochizuki," he adds, when he realizes that he knows her name, but hasn’t offered his own. "It's very nice to meet you."

She tilts her head to one side. For a moment he thinks he sees a ghost of recognition flicker behind her eyes. Then it's gone, so quick that Ryoji's left wondering if it was ever there at all.

"So you're the new new kid," she says playfully, eyes gleaming with mischief. "Here to steal my mantle, huh?"

“Aigis already stole your mantle!” Junpei reminds her. “Face it, Arisato, you’re last semester’s news. And be nice, you’re scaring Ryoji!”

“I’m always nice!” she insists. “Ryoji knows I’m just playing. Right, Ryoji?” she asks, with a nudge that sends his head spinning. Her eyes are so warm a brown they’re nearly red. Where has has he seen them before?

“What’s up, buddy?” Junpei asks, shooting him a confused look. “You’re kinda quiet.”

“Huh?” Ryoji says hazily. And then: “Oh. Sorry, I just… Hamu-chan,” he says earnestly, and almost reaches for her hand before he remembers that he literally _just_ met this girl.

Looking startled but not displeased by the familiarity of his address, Hamuko flashes another blinding grin.

“Ryo-chan,” she shoots back, not to be beat. Junpei rolls his eyes like he expected no less.

Usually Ryoji doesn’t talk about the things he can’t remember. It’s much more fun to play in the present, where the sun is warm and the girls are pretty. But there’s something about Hamuko that makes him feel like she might understand.

“I just got the weirdest feeling, seeing you,” he confesses, looking at her through his lashes. “Like… nostalgia? Could we have met before, do you think?”

Hamuko’s head tilts the other way, and her eyes do that thing again -- take on that searching, calculating distance, like she’s doing equations in her head. But before she can answer, Junpei is shoving him on the shoulder.

“ _Dude_ ,” he snickers. “I know you’re shameless but that’s like, the oldest line in the book!”

“That’s not what I meant,” Ryoji protests, momentarily distraught, because it’s _not_. It’s not like he has any problem with flirting, in the abstract. It’s just that this feels -- bigger than that. Important. But Junpei is laughing affectionately, and Hamuko is smiling at him, and Ryoji can’t stay upset for long.

“Ah, well,” he concedes, with an amiable shrug. “I hope we get along!”

###

They get along.

Being around Hamuko is _easy_. She’s alive in every moment, bright in every place that he’s dark. Electrifying charisma flows from her every gesture, every bloodthirsty grin and confident toss of her hair. She throws her head back when she laughs, her laugh two times too loud and trigger-quick; and for someone who seems to find everything funny, she still manages to look surprised and delighted every single time that laugh barrels out of her.

Ryoji loves people -- loves tracing the edges of their perspective and fitting it over his own. He loves to make them feel good, to flatter and to praise until they bloom before him. He likes to hear them talk about themselves.

(He doesn’t like to talk about himself. What would he even talk about?)

With Hamuko, Ryoji talks about himself. Like, a lot. But he also talks about the nature of love, and the way the light sparkles off the sea, and whether or not Hamuko could beat her housemate Akihiko in a fight (she swears on her life that she could). He tells her about the holes in his mind, and the terror that thrills through him every time he recognizes something that he shouldn’t. Hamuko listens and maybe even understands, and it feels so right he can hardly stand it.

###

The only problem is Hamuko’s self-appointed guardian, who won’t stop telling him he’s dangerous.

"You are a threat," she spat at him when she first stalked up, stiff-legged and bristling. He was startled by hatred in her voice, a fury that didn’t quite match the look of distant, sterile hostility on her oddly inexpressive face. “Please step away from Hamuko-san!”

Ryoji flirted reflexively, hoping to win her over with his good nature and his obviously benign intent. It didn’t work. If anything, Aigis looked even angrier than before.

It upsets him a little, when he thinks about it. Ryoji might not be sure who he is, but he’s certainly not dangerous. How could he be dangerous? He wouldn’t hurt a fly. In fact, if he saw a fly that someone else hurt, he’d probably try to nurse it back to health, though first he’d have to figure out what flies ate: fruit, or maybe blood?

And dangerous to Hamu-chan in particular? It’s absurd. Just the thought of something happening to Hamuko makes the boy’s heart contract with dread. He’d die before he let anything hurt her.

###

When the class goes to Kyoto, Hamuko takes him to the river and buys him a green tea crepe to share. Two bites in, her nose is already green with powdered matcha. When Ryoji reaches out to brush it off, he has to resist the bizarre conviction that it's his own nose he's cleaning.

“Hey,” he tells her, “here’s something I didn’t know: the light reflects off the river in a different way than it shines off of the ocean."

Hamuko’s eyes light up.

“It’s cause of how it’s flowing,” she explains enthusiastically. “Water doesn’t actually have a color of its own, you know. It’s like a mirror: when you look at it, you’re actually seeing whatever-it-is that it’s reflecting. The smoother the surface, the clearer the image.”

“How it’s flowing,” Ryoji repeats, turning the words over in his mouth with unabashed delight. “So the water is on a journey, too. That must be fun.”

Hamuko grins at him.

“Here,” she says, shuffling closer and snatching up the paper that their crepe was wrapped in. “Lemme see if I can still do this…”

With a few deft movements, she’s folded it into a new shape: a little pyramid sitting in a pointed nest.

“You made it something new!” Ryoji gasps. “What is it?”

“What do you think?”

“A hat?” he guesses hopefully, snatching it up and settling it on his head. Hamuko snickers.

“You got matcha in your hair,” she snorts, reaching out to brush it away. She’s so close that he can see himself reflected in her eyes. If she were any other girl, he would ask if he could kiss her. He wants to kiss her, wants desperately to close the distance between them. “No,” she goes on, “it’s not a hat. It’s a boat! That way we can send it on a journey, too.”

“But -- won’t it get wet?” Ryoji asks. There’s a strange sadness welling up inside him, threatening to dampen the buoyant brightness of this perfect day. “And sink?”

“Eventually, yeah,” she says dismissively, flapping her hand like she couldn’t care either way. She pushes herself to her feet and pulls him up after her, and the two of them skid down the slope of the riverbank -- Hamuko light-stepping like a mountain goat, and Ryoji in a barely-controlled slide. “But everything ends someday,” she adds, more quietly, catching him by the waist before he goes tumbling into the drink. “And think of all the things it’ll get to see before it does!”

“I guess you’re right,” Ryoji laughs, crying a little. He’s never felt so much before. He’s -- oh, fuck, he’s in love; god help him, he absolutely, irreversibly loves her. He met her this week, he can’t possibly love her. He can’t stop thinking about her. He could never love anyone else.

###

The boy who is not a boy hates to be alone. When there’s no one else around, there’s nothing to distract him from the curious dread that subsumes him sometimes: the terrible, creeping anxiety that assures him that all is not well, that it’s all for nothing, that he’s not even here at all. When Junpei is busy and Hamu-chan isn’t picking up, the boy goes to Paulonia Mall and charms strangers into buying him coffee.

On his way out of Chagall, he spies a familiar puff of russet hair.

“Oh, Hamuko!” he says giddily. Just seeing her makes him feel more real. She’s here with a man a few years older, with cream-colored hair and beautiful yellow eyes. “Oh, is this another of your boyfriends? He has white hair too. Is that your type, Hamu-chan?”

Hamuko gives him a sharp look, as though deciding whether she’s being insulted. When he only gazes earnestly back at her, she grins.

“I like em dark-haired, too,” she tells him, with a wink that brings color to his face and warmth to his belly. “This is my friend Theo. Theo, this is Ryoji. Huh,” she says to herself, in a tone of surprise. “I think you guys would really get along, actually.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Theo!” Ryoji tells him honestly. Everything is nice when Hamuko’s around. “I love your blue coat, it’s beautiful. And it looks so soft! Can I try it on?”

“Ah -- is that customary?” Theo asks hesitantly, shooting Hamuko an uncertain look. Ryoji would also like to know the answer, so he turns to listen too.

Faced with such an attentive audience, Hamuko snorts.

“Yeah, sure,” she says. “Totally customary. Here, let’s all trade clockwise. Dibs Ryoji’s scarf!”

He hands it over gladly as he slides his arms into Theo’s blue coat -- which is just as soft as he hoped -- and gives Theo, who’s squeezing into a too-tight cream sweater, an encouraging smile.

“Well, I think we look great,” Hamuko declares. “C’mon, Ryoji, I was about to introduce Theo to karaoke. You can keep us company.”

###

They’re spending more time together. They’ve taken to touching -- not flirtatiously, necessarily, but affectionately, casually: her arm draped loosely on his shoulders, finger tracing circles over his collarbone. Ryoji blooms under her touch, rubs his face against her shoulder like a lovesick cat. When night falls, he walks her to her dorm.

“You can’t come in,” she tells him regretfully. “Aigis would lose her mind.”

“Then I don’t want you to go either,” he says selfishly. Hamuko gives him an exasperated look, but takes his hand anyway.

“C’mon,” she tells him. “Let’s go to the shrine.”

They climb to the top of the jungle gym and sit with their knees touching, feet dangling over open air. Hamuko breathes hot steam into the air between them; it hangs in the air for a moment, ghostly, before the wind whips it away. She looks cold. On instinct, Ryoji unwinds half of his scarf and wraps it around her neck, binding them together. She huffs a breath into the fabric, giggles.

“It’s still warm,” she confides, eyes sparkling. “Thanks.”

He’s sort of surprised to hear it. Hamuko is so hot with life that he thought he might feel cold by comparison.

“It’s because you’re here,” he decides, utterly serious. “You breathe warmth into me.”

That too-fast, too-loud laugh rattles out of her like gunfire, rat-tat-tat-tat-tat.

“You sure say some stuff,” she observes, stifling another giggle. The cold air pinks her cheeks, turns the tip of her nose rosy. Ryoji frowns and pulls his scarf up over it. Then, for good measure, he cups his hands and brings their faces close, trying to breathe warmth into her like she does for him.

“ _—h_ ,” she breathes, barely a whisper. He looks up from her cold-numbed nose to find her _right there_ , eyes like mulled wine, only inches from his own and warm with fondness. Need strikes him with painful urgency.

“Please,” he says desperately, “I have to kiss you, please--”

“I can’t,” she starts to say, and Ryoji dies a little. “I mean, I can’t -- be serious right now, about _anything_ , I don’t think; it’s been kind of a--”

“Serious!” he laughs, drawing her up short. “God, I don’t need you to-- even this, just this, is -- it feels like coming home, you can’t even imagine -- anything you can spare, it’s already enough--”

Hamuko softens; her brow smooths.

“You’re crazy,” she whispers, bringing her face close enough to bump his forehead with her own. Ryoji closes his eyes and then it’s her warm mouth on his, breathing fire into his belly and gilding his bones with molten gold, and Ryoji moans into her mouth and bursts into tears, and there is nothing in this world or any that he fears.

###

The boy who is not a boy has never been so happy, or so afraid. He’s drunk with devotion, high off her scent and her voice and the sound of her laugh, but even the blazing beacon of Hamuko’s affection isn’t enough to burn away the darkness inside him. He's terrified of being alone, of the fact that tomorrow will come, of the fact of his own fear.

“Hamu-chan,” he says desperately one morning, so early that the sun is still half-hidden behind the world. They’ve snuck onto the school roof, even though school is supposed to be closed on Sundays. The front door was locked, but Hamuko is very resourceful. “Hamu-chan, I’m… Am I really here?”

He feels like the words don't match up with his mouth, like he’s a character in a bad dub from one of those shady websites where Hamuko downloads foreign cartoons. He feels like he's watching the scene play out from above -- like if he looked up he might see himself, bodiless, suspended overhead like a vengeful ghost. He feels like he’s dying, or maybe he’s already dead.

Then he looks up and sees Hamuko looking straight through him, face fierce and possessive and tight with concern, and his fear dissipates like smoke.

“It’s nothing,” he says, laughing easily, because everything is easy with Hamuko. “Look at the water, it's like silver. It almost hurts."

“All the best things do,” she says, and laughs.

###

The dreams are getting worse. Ryoji can’t bear to sleep. He’s losing time, waking up in strange places. He can feel the darkness growing. When Hamuko sends him away at night he feels cold inside and hollow, like a paper boy. He thinks about the paper boat she made him by the river in Kyoto, taking on water, growing heavier and heavier until finally it sinks, only half gone but already forgotten. He thinks about the paper turning soft and slushy until there is nothing left at all, not even matcha-colored stain. He thinks about all the things it has seen, and will never see again. 

Ryoji closes his eyes in class and wakes up on a bridge. The moon is enormous, a massive yellow eye glaring at him from the heavens. The clouds look like bread mold. The sky looks rotten. Ryoji closes his eyes and wishes he was anywhere else. He wants to throw up. He both needs and desperately doesn’t want to know how he got here. He never wants to learn the truth. He wants to lie and lie and lie until he’s sick with it, until his skin splits and his pores drip silver. He wants to be Hamuko’s and nothing else until he dies. He wants to be selfish. He wants to be real.

If the boy really isn’t a boy, then what _is_ he, exactly?

Footsteps close in. It’s Ai-chan, Hamuko’s protector, the one who calls him dangerous. What does she know that he doesn’t?

Aigis’ face is as smooth and reserved as ever, but somehow he can still feel the hate in her, not hot like Hamuko’s anger but glacial cold. Aigis looks at him with murder in her eyes as she takes his world apart.

“You are not real,” she says coldly, confirming his every fear in a single breath, and just like that, the dark eclipses everything good and warm and bright, and the light that Hamuko put in him goes out. “Your name is Death.”

He remembers everything.

Hamuko's living weapon cannot harm him, no matter how much he might wish that she could. Thanatos is whole now, and stronger than he was when last they met on the field of battle. To dispatch her is the simplest thing in the world.

He doesn't finish Aigis off, because it would hurt Hamuko, and he would rather die than hurt Hamuko. Instead he sits beside her and waits, endlessly patient, for his friends to arrive

“My mother is coming,” he warns them miserably, when they do. He can’t look at Hamuko, can’t bear to see the betrayal in her eyes. “Now that I’m whole, she’ll come for me, and that’s the end of everything.”

“So we’ll beat her,” Yukari says fiercely. “We’ve beat bigger.”

“You don’t understand,” Thanatos sobs. “She’s not a monster to fight, she’s more like… Sunset. She’s inevitable. Everything ends, and she’s what ends it.”

He tells them everything, about the day that Aigis failed to kill him and opted instead to seal him away inside a little girl who had just lost everything. No matter what he says, they don’t understand. He can still see the hope burning away in them, guttering and ashy but not yet ready to go out. He’s not explaining it right. He has to make them understand.

“There’s more I need to tell you,” he says weakly, and collapses. _Everything ends._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death goes sightseeing.

_Thanatos dreams of another life._

_Alcestis’ time has come. It is not personal. Thanatos is not cruel, like his sisters. He is the right hand of Fate, delivering each soul to its inevitable end._

_But when he arrives, someone stands in his way. Her hair is like straw, her eyes unearthly blue. She is a living weapon, the greatest champion of the mortal world._

_“If you want her,” Heracles says, hefting her arms with mechanical fury, “you’ll have to go through me.”_

_“But I_ don’t _want her,” Thanatos explains mournfully. “I’m only doing my job. She signed the contract. I don’t have any choice.”_

_“Well, I do,” Heracles says fiercely, and attacks._

###

Thanatos wakes up in the Iwatodai dormitory. The body he’s wearing has been here before, but it was different then: full of warm smells and bright feelings, with everyone smiling at him and laughing at him and shoving him fondly.

No one is smiling at him now.

"Are you okay, Ryoji-kun?" asks Fuuka, the Priestess. She always was the softest of them. It’s almost funny: she still thinks he’s a person. Thanatos thinks about crying, and smiles instead.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I’m okay.”

“Ryoji-kun…” Yukari says sadly.

He wishes they would stop using that name. It was only a mask he wore, a lie so alluring that for a short time, even _he_ believed it. But he was never really Ryoji. He was always only Death.

“I have to explain,” he says quietly. The silver-haired one, Akihiko or possibly Theodore, he can’t be bothered to remember, scowls at him.

“So explain,” he demands.

Thanatos explains.

He explains about his mother, and how she made him as -- a sort of sleeper agent, lying in wait until the time was right for him to end the world. All the while he can feel Hamuko across the room, sitting as far from him as she can get, all the way at the farthest end of the couch. Good. If she was close enough that he could reach out and touch her, he doesn’t think that he could bear it.

Someone is saying something. He forces himself to listen.

“...possible to keep it from happening, right?” Yukari is asking.

He can't answer that. He looks away.

“No,” a clear voice answers for him. This time he looks up, because -- how could he not? Hamuko will always have his full attention.

“He’s saying it’s not possible,” she announces, the words toneless and flat. “Or -- he’s saying _he_ thinks it’s impossible. Isn’t that right, Ryoji-kun?”

 _Don’t say that name_. This time he almost says it. Instead, he bites his tongue.

“Yeah,” he says, looking down. “That’s what I’m saying. My existence confirms it. It’s already written.”

He tells them that they have a few months, maybe, if they're lucky. He tells them about what his mother really is, and what it means that she’s returned. He can feel Hamuko’s stare burning a hole through his chest but he can’t look at her, not now; he doesn’t deserve to, or maybe it would just be too painful.

Thanatos still has one more thing to say, one last gift he can give them.

He hesitates.

“And there’s something else,” that steady voice announces, unwavering but _heavy_ , lead and ash where it’s usually trumpets and brass. “Isn’t there?”

“Yes,” he says, the answer compelled out of him as surely as if she’d reached into his chest and wrapped her hands around his lungs and _squeezed_ the words out his throat. “Yes. I, um -- because of--” He can’t say her name. “Because of my unique circumstances,” he attempts, “Er -- meaning where I’ve been, and how I got to look like one of you, for a while -- I can offer you a choice.”

“You’d help us fight Nyx?” Junpei asks, pathetically hopeful. Ryoji cringes.

“No,” Hamuko answers for him, coldly. “It’s not that. He doesn’t think there’s any point in trying, do you, Ryo-chan? He’s already given up.”

“It’s not -- _giving up_ ,” he says tightly, frustration finally breaking his composure. _Frustration_. That’s a laugh. Death, feeling _frustrated_. A lifeless monster getting upset about being _misunderstood_ , as though he were a person, as though he had any right to these feelings. He takes a slow breath, lets it out. “It’s not giving up,” he says again, calmly. “It’s acceptance. Everything dies. That much is immutable. But _how_ you die -- how you feel before you die -- that, I can help with.”

“How so?” Mitsuru asks. Her tone is clinical. From the corner of his eye, Ryoji -- no, _Thanatos_ \-- can feel Hamuko’s glare.

“It’s pretty simple, actually,” he says, flashing a nervous smile. “You just have to kill me.”

There’s a loud _snap_. Thanatos looks up in time to see a piece of Hamuko's evoker rattle to the floor. He hadn't even noticed she was holding it.

“We can make you another,” Mitsuru says calmly. Hamuko manages a stiff nod. He can see her jaw working, tightening and relaxing and tightening again.

“What the hell do you mean, _kill_ you?” Junpei demands. Ryoji can’t look at him. Now that he’s seen her, he can’t tear his gaze away from Hamuko.

“Pretty much what it sounds like,” he says. He tries for another smile, but his friends don’t seem to like it. "Um... Cause if I disappear, all your memories of the Dark Hour will go with me. It’ll be like this whole year -- all the trauma, all your suffering -- never even happened. You'd be like I was yesterday," he starts to say, and then realizes that he's screwed up, he can't finish that sentence without crying. Death, crying. It's like the punch line to the world's saddest joke. It doesn’t matter; they get the idea. He skips past it.

“Then the Fall would be instantaneous,” he explains. “And painless. You’d just be living, until you weren’t. Like everyone, really. Death doesn’t hurt,” he adds, quietly. “It’s like getting a shot. It’s only the anticipation that pains you.”

His friends -- no, that’s not fair -- _the humans_ just stare at him, uncomprehending. What is there to do but keep explaining?

“But, um,” Thanatos goes on, and for god’s sake _why can’t he stop smiling_ that ingratiating, desperate, _pointless_ little smile, a drop of tainted water in the desert. “I’m, haha, my mother’s son, you know! Meaning that normally I, um, couldn’t be killed by humans. But.”

He looks away.

“But since she -- Because she carried me for so long,” he says quietly, “there’s -- I have--” God, how the hell is he supposed to say, _she’s with me still, inside me always, just like I was in her; she kept me warm for ten years and I repaid her by stealing from her, stealing her warmth and her spirit and her kindness and now I can never give it back._ “There’s part of me that’s human,” he tries. “And part of her that’s-- well. I think if it's her who -- does it, that I could. You know.” They _must_ know, but he’s gotten this far, he may as well see it through. “Die,” he concludes, somewhat feebly.

Hamuko’s arms are shaking. He knows her -- he’s _been_ her -- so he knows exactly what she’s feeling: that searing, roiling fury that rears its head whenever someone tells her that there’s _no point_ , that it’s _out of her hands_ , that she’s helpless and will always _be_ helpless. He knows the fire growing inside her, a terrible fanged heat that churns in her gut and licks up her spine till her blood boils and her skin cracks. He remembers exactly how it feels. He remembers that it _hurts_.

He said he’d die before he hurt her. Now he’ll do both.

“It’s the only way,” he says desperately. “If you don’t, you’ll have to live under the shadow of this looming thing, and you'll try and try and try to stop it, you’ll muster all of your strength and when it's not enough you'll die in _pieces_ , broken and bloody, and death won’t be respite, it’ll be _failure_. I don’t want to hurt you!” he adds, in what’s almost a shout.

Hamuko laughs, once, and Ryoji feels his stomach turn to stone. It’s an ugly sound, completely devoid of mirth.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says again, more quietly. “I don’t want _any_ of this to be true, but it _is_ , and I can’t change that. I’d say a hundred hurtful things, if it would spare you all that suffering. It’s fine if you hate me, that’ll only make it easier--”

“Enough,” Hamuko says darkly, and Ryoji’s mouth snaps shut. He can see her fists closing and opening, closing and opening, her forearms taut and trembling, muscles stretched past their breaking point. “I have to talk to my friends,” she says. “We have to -- figure this out.”

He doesn’t dare speak. He just nods.

“How will we contact you?” Mitsuru asks quietly, darting a concerned look at Hamuko.

“You have until the end of the month,” he tells her. “After that, I’ll dissolve into the Dark Hour -- um, _this_ incarnation will dissolve, I mean; the me that you know -- and then it’ll be too late. I’ll come back for your decision then.”

He stands, and Junpei trips to his feet, makes as if to follow.

“Ryoji, wait,” he starts to say, but that’s only going to make it harder and Ryoji can’t, he _can’t_ , he can’t _bear_ for this to be any harder, it’s already so much more than he can stand. If he stays just a minute longer he might never leave, and that wouldn’t be _fair_ , not when his friends already know what they have to do. If he stays with them like this, wearing this human skin, looking like one of them, Hamuko will never do what she has to do, and she _has_ to. She can’t die in pieces, suffering, broken. He won’t let her.

“I’ll be back on New Year’s Eve,” he says quietly. If he looks at Hamuko again he won’t leave, so he doesn’t. He closes his eyes, and he’s gone.

###

So that’s it, then. The end.

Everything ends, and Thanatos is who ends it. It’s his purpose, the only reason he was ever here at all. Everything else was -- just a dream, a pretty story that he told himself for a little while, to pass the time.

He’s got a little more time to kill. If he were human, he would spend it with the people he loved. He’d saturate his final moments with affection and elation; he’d never once let go of her hand. But Thanatos isn’t human. Where would you go if you could go anywhere, but no matter where you go, you won’t feel anything? Paris? Ryoji used to talk about going to Paris, or maybe that was Hamuko, he can’t remember.

###

Thanatos goes to Paris. He goes to the Louvre, because -- what the hell else is he supposed to do? But Hamuko never really cared about the fine arts, and that meant that Ryoji didn’t, either. Why would it be any different for Thanatos? Art is for humans, anyway.

He walks along the Seine. He is just human enough for it to piss him off, this stupid beautiful river reflecting all these stupid beautiful lights in the _literal city of love_ , while _his_ person is back in Japan, kissing some white-haired boy or some other white-haired boy or Mitsuru fucking Kirijo, for all he knows. He looks in the water and remembers a day by the river, a paper boat, the taste of matcha on his tongue, a boy who couldn’t remember his name. He looks in the water and remembers her laugh, wine-colored eyes, a smile like sunlight. She’s everywhere. He can’t get away from her. Why would he ever want to?

“Konichiwaaa,” says a friendly voice with a frankly heinous accent. “e’scuse me for asking zis, but are you from Nippon?”

Thanatos is startled to find himself grinning. For a second, he’s Ryoji again.

“How could you tell?” he asks, turning to give Bebe a dazzling smile. The blonde smiles back, bright and hopeful.

“Oh, because of zat you look--” He spots the playful gleam in Ryoji’s eye and smiles. “Ah. You are, ‘ow do you say, playing with me.”

“Yeah, you got me,” Ryoji confesses, holding up his hands in surrender. “And yeah, I’m from Japan, I guess, as much as I’m from anywhere. Why,” he asks slyly. “Have you been?”

“‘ _ave_ I! I was zere, eh… almost ‘alf ze year, until I was -- made to leave,” he concludes, shoulders sagging a little.

Ryoji really shouldn’t do this, but he’s a sucker for punishment.

“And how’d you like it?” he asks lazily, reclining against the low stone wall that lines the walkway. “Did you leave anyone special behind?”

Bebe’s eyes go glassy with sentiment.

“Aoow, ‘ow did you guess?” he asks mistily. “I ‘ad… A friend. She was, ‘ow do I say it--”

“You know, I think I probably speak French,” Ryoji mutters, but Bebe waves him away.

“She was like flame,” he says, with effort. “Bright, and -- with a lot of power. But always warm, to everyone, even when it was not easy, or -- eh -- _convenient_. She 'ad little time, and still she gave some to me."

“We all have limited time, in the end,” Ryoji says sorrowfully. “She’d probably say that’s no reason not to be generous with it, though. And that it’s all the more reason to spend it well.”

“Who would say?” Bebe asks, with a quizzical stare. Ryoji shakes his head, gives the other boy a sheepish shrug.

“I had a friend too,” he says mournfully, and then shrugs again, offers up a melancholy smile. Bebe gives him a sympathetic look.

“In France we say, _Il n'y a que les montagnes qui ne se rencontrent jamais_.”

Ryoji squints at him, takes a second to piece it together.

“There are only mountains that never meet?” he repeats, tilting his head to one side. Bebe frowns.

“It means zat, eh… zere is no one so far zat fate cannot bring you together.” And then, with an encouraging smile: “You will see your friend again, if fate allows it.”

“Hah!” Ryoji laughs. “Well, I’m pretty sure fate will allow it.” Mournfully: “That’s what I’m worried about.”

Bebe’s forehead furrows, but Ryoji is already standing up, brushing dust from the seat of his pants.

“Ah, well,” he sighs, clapping Bebe on the shoulder as he turns to leave. “I hear that all the best things hurt.”

###

He thinks about seeing Hamuko. He wonders if he’s strong enough to see her -- only from afar, of course; to _really_ visit her would be cruel. He needs her to hate him, after all, needs to stoke the fires of her rage until they are hot enough to burn him from this world. He can think of nothing more blissful.

Will she kill him fast, or slow? Will she hesitate? Will there be hurt in her eyes, or only hatred: for what he’s done to her, and for the terrible choice that he’s forced her to make? Privately, he hopes that she will kill him slow. Desperately, he hopes that it won’t hurt her.

Thanatos thinks about seeing Hamuko, and knows that he can’t. He’s not strong like she is. If he saw her, even from afar, he couldn’t resist any longer. He would go to her -- blindly, self-destructively, like a moth to a radiant flame. He would take her face in his hands, and feel the warmth of her against his palms, and she would glare at him and shout at him until her flame burned out and she softened, and--

No. He’s not strong enough to be thinking like this. It’s too close to seeing her, too painfully tempting. He can’t be selfish. He can’t make this any harder for her, not when everything is already so hard.

Instead, he buys her a Christmas present, a thick wool scarf just like his but in red, to match her eyes. He can’t give it to her, obviously. She’d know who it was from, and that would be cruel. No, he just -- buys it, and then walks around holding it for a while. He thinks about what it might have been like if he was a real person, just Ryoji Mochizuki, a transfer student. Would Hamuko have spent Christmas with him? She enjoyed his company well enough, but she enjoyed a lot of people’s company. And she certainly wasn’t lacking in admirers. At the end of the day, she liked him because he was hers -- a little piece of her soul, stolen away in the night. If he was just Ryoji Mochizuki, a transfer student, she would never have looked his way. There’s no world where they get to be happy.

Thanatos sighs and throws her present in the river.

If he could give away _his_ memories -- of what he really is; of what looms on the horizon -- he’d do it in a heartbeat. It was so much fun, pretending to be real. He’d give anything to lie like that again. But lying is for humans, just like choice, and warmth, and love. Thanatos isn’t human. Thanatos isn’t a Shadow. He’s not even the end of the world. He’s just -- a means to an end; a door to open, before it closes for the very last time. Ryoji Mochizuki, bellboy to the apocalypse. _May I take your coat, ma’am? Watch your step; you nearly scuffed your shoe on the ashes of a dying world_.

Where would you go if you could go anywhere, and none of it would mean anything?

Thanatos goes to visit a friend of a friend.

###

Shinjiro Aragaki is having a nightmare. There’s fire everywhere, and the sound of pounding hooves, and somewhere in the heart of it all, Thanatos can hear someone screaming: a young girl, or maybe an older woman. The air is thick with smoke. The smoke isn’t real, and neither are his lungs, but it makes him cough anyway.

“Who’s there?” growls a voice from the heart of the flames.

“Hey,” Thanatos says awkwardly. “I’m… a friend, I guess? Or a friend of a friend, at least.”

A massive, slouching figure stomps out of the flames, his face shrouded in shadow. The lapel of his jacket is on fire. Reflexively, Thanatos stretches out a hand and pats it out.

“That’s better,” he says kindly. “You should be careful with fire, you know. It’s dangerous.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Shinjiro roars, clenching his fists and advancing on him. It makes for a very imposing image. Unfortunately for Shinji, he’s not fooling anyone. Thanatos already knows who he really is.

“Of course you know,” he says contritely, face falling. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive. I just meant that you should take care of yourself, too.”

Shinji gives him a suspicious squint.

“Who the hell are you, anyway?” he asks distrustfully. “And how are you here? We’re… I’m pretty sure this isn’t real.”

“Hah!” Thanatos laughs. “Well, that’s for the best,” he says lightly, in the face of Shinjiro’s quizzical stare. “Since I’m not real, either.”

Shinji looks him up and down appraisingly.

“You kinda remind me of someone,” he says after a moment, a little less hostile now, but no less suspicious. “But it’s weird, cause… If I was going to dream about her, wouldn’t it just be _her_? Why come up with -- some weird cipher?”

“The human brain is a beautiful mystery,” Thanatos says, shrugging. “Maybe your subconscious is protecting you. Maybe it would be too painful, seeing her when you know it won’t last.”

“Nah,” Shinji disagrees, without heat. “I don’t think that’s it. If anything, that’s all the more reason to see her while I can.”

“Hm,” Thanatos says, stiffening slightly. “What makes you say that?”

Shinjiro shrugs expansively. All around him, the fire still rages, but the screaming has faded into the background. Even the crackle of the flames has quieted, less hungry wildfire and more cozy fireplace.

“I got a lot of clarity, when I thought I was dying,” he says thoughtfully. And then, defensively: “It’s not like I’d recommend it. I just mean -- all that stuff I told her about how she should stay away, and I wasn’t worth her time, cause I was dying… It was all bullshit, I think. Cause we’re all dying, you know?”

“I do know,” Thanatos confirms.

“Even she’ll die one day,” Shinji goes on, and a stormcloud passes over him, darkens his face. “But _hell_ if that means she doesn’t matter. I _know_ she matters. So I guess I’m saying -- if you have a shot at something good, you gotta take it, right?”

“Hm,” Thanatos hums, noncommittal.

“Anyway,” Shinji sighs, with another expansive shrug, “she’s a big girl. She can make her own choices. Trying to make them for her -- it was disrespectful, honestly.”

“Hmm,” Thanatos says again, somewhat less neutrally. Shinji squints at him.

“You got a problem?”

“No, no,” Thanatos says hastily, “just -- thinking. I should go, actually. Wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome,” he adds, with a wink. “Next time, make sure to dream the real thing, okay? Don’t waste the time you have left on bad dreams.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Shinji deadpans, but he’s talking to himself. Thanatos is already gone.

###

_Thanatos dreams._

_The king of Ephyra has incurred divine punishment, and by Death's own hand, no less. Thanatos flaps over the Styx to meet her. Where the river meets the horizon he can make out the outline of a paper boat, receding into the distance. Soon it will be out of sight._

_“You don’t understand,” he says when he finds her, with feeling, and to little effect -- the girl’s defiance doesn’t waver. “You’re only making things worse. You can’t cheat fate. Your efforts won’t be rewarded, they’ll be punished. You’re just rolling the same boulder up the same hill, and for what? Do you think that you can trick gravity?”_

_“Watch me,” she tells him fiercely. Thanatos sighs._

_“I have to chain you now,” he says miserably. “I haven’t got any choice.”_

_“Will you just show me how it works, first?” she asks innocently, batting her eyes like a baby deer. She’s not fooling anyone -- he can see the gears turning behind her eyes -- but he could never say no to her. Thanatos holds out his wrists and lets her trick him into his own chains._

_“You’re not saving yourself, you know,” he tells her sadly, as she skips away. “You’re only delaying the inevitable.”_

_“Isn’t that all anyone can hope to do?” she calls over her shoulder, and throws him one last blinding smile, like a parting gift. “Delay the inevitable?”_

###

“Hey,” he says quietly, to the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad. “Long time no see.”

This time, Hamuko isn’t sitting across the room from him. She’s standing right beside him, so rigid with conviction that she may as well have been carved from stone. It’s strange to see her like this. In normal circumstances, she never holds still: she chews her pen, bounces her knee, peels shreds of paper from her notebook and rolls them between her fingers

"Midnight's just around the corner," Thanatos continues, with a sad little half-smile. "When it gets here, I'll -- change, into something you won't recognize."

Hamuko’s eyes flash. Thanatos can see the effort it takes her, biting off a retort. The thought if it is almost enough to make him smile.

“So,” he asks, brighter now. “Have you made your choice?”

The team looks at each other, and Thanatos realizes that he’s intruding. The humans need to talk, and he’s getting in the way.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” he says hastily, bouncing to his feet. “I can wait somewhere--”

“My room,” Hamuko says abruptly. When he turns to stare, startled, she gives him a wry smile. “I think you know the way?”

“Yeah,” he says, and suddenly he’s grinning in earnest. “Then I’ll, um. I’ll see you there.”

###

His room -- _Hamuko’s_ and his -- is just like he remembers: pink gingham comforter crumpled near the foot of the bed; a tangle of thrice-worn sweaters and dirty underwear heaped on the floor beside it. The desk crowded with at least twelve mugs, twice as many as usual now that Shinji’s not here to remind her to wash them. The mirror still shows him the wrong face, but this one is worse than the one before: pale and dark-haired, with unearthly blue eyes. How did those eyes not give him away? The face in the mirror looks _wrong_.

Thanatos turns away, goes to sit on the bed. He closes his eyes. He waits.

The door creaks open, and socked feet pad through the threshold.

“Hey, Hamu-chan,” Ryoji says softly, turning to greet her. He tries to be solemn, but he can’t help smiling. He might not deserve it, but even so, he is so, so happy to see her. “It’s been a while, huh?” he asks, cocking his head to one side. “I missed this place.” _I missed you_ , he doesn’t add. He doesn’t have to. She knows.

Hamuko glares at him from the center of the room, hands planted firmly on her hips.

“I’m mad at you!” she insists, but she doesn’t look mad. She looks _devastated_ , and also immensely relieved, and there’s the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “ _Dammit_ , Ryoji, you really pissed me off! Even if we _were_ gonna take your deal, I -- you don’t just get to disappear on me! Are you _kidding_ me?”

“You know, I’m not,” he tells her, his smile widening. He’s grinning like an idiot, sun shining out of his every pore, because it’s _Hamuko_ ; she’s right there, he _loves_ her. “Thought about you a lot,” he confesses, looking bashfully at his feet.

“Yeah no shit you thought about me, you idiot,” she snorts. “We’re like, practically one person! I’m all you think about, you _stupid_ , self-sacrificing _dummy_. I bet you bought me a Christmas present, too.”

“I did,” he admits.

“And I bet you threw it in the river, like a big dramatic _baby_.”

Ryoji laughs with sheer delight.

“You know me too well,” he tells her, beaming. Hamuko rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, _no shit_ ,” she says again. “Wow, it’s almost like I know you so well that ghosting me for your last month on earth was _completely pointless_ , because it’d take a lot more than thirty days’ silent treatment to make me forget a piece of my soul.”

She started out angry, but by the end of her tirade the heat has gone out of her words, making her look half her usual size. He can see her lip trembling. Thanatos has claimed a billion billion dying souls, and still, it’s the worst thing he’s ever seen.

“Hey, hey,” he says desperately, rising to his feet on pure instinct. He reaches for her, unthinking, and then freezes, his hand suspended in the air.

“You can touch me, _stupid_ ,” she sniffles, giving him a watery-eyed glare. Thanatos doesn’t deserve to touch her -- doesn’t deserve her warmth any more than he deserves her forgiveness -- but how could he resist? He’s upon her in an instant, folding his arms tight around her shoulders and pressing her face to his chest.

“I just,” he says helplessly, as she cries a little wet spot into his scarf. “I just wanted to make it easier. It was already so unfair, you deserved so much better, and I didn’t want to make it any harder--”

“Well, you _did_ ,” she growls into his shoulder, but she must have felt the way her words went through him like a sledgehammer, leaving his chest a mess of shredded meat and shattered bone, because she immediately takes it back. “I don’t mean that,” she sighs, petting down his back with both hands. “Or -- maybe I do, but I know you meant well. But _christ_ , Ryoji, did you really have to decide what’s best for me without even _asking_?”

“It wasn’t just for you,” he says miserably. “I was -- it wasn’t fair for me to have you after all I’d already took from you; not when I was about to take everything else.”

“That’s not fair!” she says fiercely, pulling away to glare at him again. “That’s not -- you don’t have a _choice_. You’ve never had a choice. Of course you think there’s no way to stop this, you’ve never been able to stop a single thing that’s happened to you in your entire life. But I will,” she says, with terrible certainty. “I’ll stop it. I’ll stop Nyx, and I’ll save you.”

Despair settles over him, heavy and dark.

“No,” he says, and now he’s the one trembling. “Hamuko, you _can’t_. Please, you -- you have to understand, this isn't like the other times.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Hamuko says, turning her nose up at him.

“Is it because you all agreed?” he asks desperately. “Because they -- they won’t remember, if you do it. It’s just us here. They’re in your hands, Hamu-chan. Even if you won’t do it for you, you can -- you can spare them this, all on your own. You can still save them! Isn’t that what you want?”

“ _Yes_ ,” she says fiercely, but Ryoji knows she’s talking about something different. The strength goes out of him; his legs buckle, and he drops to his knees.

“ _Please_ , Hamuko,” he begs openly. “I want to give you this, I _have_ to. If I don’t, you’ll -- you’ll have to live out the rest of your days knowing what’s coming, with this horrible inevitability looming over you--”

“And how is that different?” she demands. Her tone is hostile, but the hand that alights on his shoulder is gentle, so gentle, light as a songbird and just as fragile. “Death is already inevitable,” she tells him, running her fingernails up the side of his neck. “I learned that when I was six years old. All we can ever hope to do is -- delay it, for a while.”

He gives her a sharp look. He feels like he’s heard that before.

It doesn’t matter. No matter how determined she is, it won’t be enough. He has to make her understand.

“You still think of me as Ryoji, right?” he asks softly. “Or Pharos, even. But those people aren’t real. They’re -- aspects of _you_ , really. They were never really me.”

Hamuko actually rolls her eyes. He glares at her, biting his tongue to keep from smiling.

“I’m being serious!” he insists.

“Yeah, I _know_ ,” she shoots back. “But I mean, I used to be a cluster of cells knocking around in someone’s guts. Before that, I was -- dinosaur bones, or stardust or something, I don’t know, I’m not a scientist. But I’m not about to stand here and pretend that I don’t matter just because I _used_ to be something else.”

Ryoji frowns.

“Well,” he says, aware that he’s floundering a little. “Well, that’s different. Or, I mean -- I’m _still_ something else. I didn’t want to show you this,” he says, with a note of melancholy. “But if it will help--”

He stands, huffs out a long breath, and lets his body remember.

Thanatos’ form, his true form, still floats in the sea of human consciousness. It is the simplest thing in the world to reach out and take it -- less like changing his shape and more like shucking an ill-fitting suit. In an instant, the boy he used to wear is gone. Ryoji Mochizuki can't die, because he never really lived, so instead he just -- ends. In the place where he stood is Thanatos, the right hand of Fate, claimer of souls, harbinger to the end. He floats in the air, stretches his terrible wings, hefts his terrible sword, and looks down at the girl he pretended to love, back when he was still pretending that he could feel anything at all.

To his consternation, he finds her smiling.

“I thought that was you,” she says warmly. She takes a step closer, and Thanatos, the right hand of Fate, claimer of souls and harbinger to the end, finds himself backstepping away, wings half-crushed against the wall. “On my first day here. You saved me.”

“I--” he rumbles in his terrible voice, glacier grinding over stone. “That’s not the point!” he shrills, and to his distinct humiliation, the right hand of Fate sounds downright _petulant_. "The point is that I'm not a real person!"

“You’re not human,” Hamuko says, shrugging like it’s not particularly important. “But Ryoji-kun, that doesn’t mean you’re not a _person_.”

Thanatos’ wings sag. She takes a step closer, lays her palm against the scaled steel of his arm, and heat rushes from her touch: floods his form, dazzles his senses. When the dust clears he is small again, and soft, clutching the end of a long yellow scarf in his hands.

“I don’t understand,” Ryoji says miserably, head bowed. “Why won’t you let me give you this?”

“Because I don’t want it,” she tells him gently, taking his hands in hers. She reaches for his face -- her touch warm, always so warm -- and lifts his chin till he has no choice but to look at her. In spite of everything, she is smiling.

“I really missed you,” he tells her, soft and warm, like he’s sharing a secret. Hamuko rolls her eyes, bumps his forehead with hers.

“Yeah, _no shit_ ,” she whispers back, and presses her mouth against his.

###

“So,” he says brightly, to the small troop of warriors seated around him. “I’ve gotta say, guys, you’ve really made a bad choice here.”

He is trying to be serious, but he can’t help grinning. Ryoji Mochizuki is insanely, deliriously happy. Hamuko is sitting beside him, _right_ beside him, squeezed into a little armchair that really only has room for one person, but that’s all right, because they sort of _are_ one person, aren’t they? She’s got her right arm draped loosely over his shoulders, and her left hand fidgets absently with a hangnail on his thumb, and her hipbone is digging uncomfortably into his side and he could not be _paid_ to mind.

(“I’m not letting go of you,” she’d growled, when they stepped onto the landing of the first floor and Ryoji started to pull away.

“But won’t they mind?” he started to ask, and she stuck her hand in his mouth.

“I don’t care,” she said, and laughed in his face as he sputtered. “Thanks to _some people’s_ overdeveloped sense of martyrdom, I’ve got a whole month of lost time to make up for. You’re just gonna have to deal.”

Ryoji was happy to deal. Her white-haired senpai shot him a murderous look when Hamuko settled in around him, and the little kid that inexplicably lives with them crossed his arms and glared at his own lap, and even Mitsuru Kirijo raised a single manicured eyebrow. All Ryoji could do was grin at them, sheepish, until Yukari rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically.

“Can we get on with it?” she demanded, mock-impatient, as Junpei leaned wordlessly across the table to give them both a congratulatory punch in the arm. So they got on with it.)

Fuuka still looks slightly scandalized, and Aigis is giving him her usual double-barreled stare, but there’s nothing Ryoji can do about that.

“I just mean,” he starts to say, soberly; and then Hamuko headbutts him and he loses track of his thought entirely. “Sorry, sorry,” he laughs. “I know, you made your choice. You have every right to. Okay, then," he says, rubbing his hands together purposefully. "Let’s talk about Nyx.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, I know I said this was a two-parter, but I was wrong. there's one more chapter coming (as you could probably tell from how abruptly this cuts off). might not be for a little while, though -- it depends how long it takes me to finish my current replay of P3P heheh. stay tuned!

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't decided if i'm going to finish this, especially since i doubt there's many people reading p3p fic in 2020... lmk if you want me to, i guess? shrugguy.png


End file.
